Naughty Bits
by mad half hour
Summary: It figures that the first man Alec touches south of the border would be 52-year old who died of sepsis. (OR the one where Alec Lightwood is a PT major struggling with the reproductive system, and Magnus is the lab assistant who would be very helpful if he didn't have such distracting anatomy of his own.)


**A/N- Well, they say to write what you know, so I figured I would give it a shot. Hopefully the subject matter isn't too gross for anyone—I've always found dissection cool and fun, so my perception is likely skewed.**

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It figures that the first penis Alec Lightwood touches (other than his own) would belong to a 52-year old man who died of sepsis. It's more flaccid than he would have imagined a dead guy's penis would be, considering how immovable the rest of the cadavers' limbs are, hanging rather limply between the corpse's spread legs. The last group clearly half-assed putting the cadaver back together, so the two pieces of its bisected whole are hanging obscenely apart, displaying the inner workings Alec had never really wanted to see. Like the rest of the cadaver, what skin the lab assistants left intact is oddly discolored, though it is a darker, almost brownish-pink color compared to the unnerving Pepto Bismal shade the majority of the man's skin is. It stands out against the grey-black, heavily wrinkled skin of the scrotum like a lighthouse against a cliff face in the evening.

Alec can't believe he just thought that. Next he'll be writing poetry for extra credit.

"I know the reproductive system is a thing of true biological beauty, Alec, but if you're done admiring his junk, we should probably get started on identifying some of the terms on our list."

"Shut up, Jace," he says, leveling a glare at the laughing, blond-haired man on the opposite side of the metal body tank. Despite himself, Alec feels a blush creep across his cheeks. As much as he'd like to think Jace might not notice, he's very aware of just how pale his skin is, and even if it wasn't, Jace has grown up with him for the better part of twenty years. In the face of his brother and embarrassing situations, hoping is beyond futile. Jace has known how to zero in on anything worth tormenting Alec about for longer than he's known how to spell the word 'blackmail'.

"Geez, no need to be so touchy," Jace teases. "We're on a time limit, y'know. We have to be practical. You can admire his dick all you want during open lab later today on your own time. Nobody wants to stay in this freezer for an extra hour, so it'll probably be just the two of you."

"Jace, you-"

Before Alec can finish a retort, Simon, the third member of their lab group, thrusts a list of 'Terms to Know' in his face, the pages already splotchy with preservatives and other stale, bloody fluids. Alec pulls a face. There's a reason why he always puts his own lists in a laminate cover before bringing it to lab. The last thing he wants while studying is to worry about forgetting to wash his hands afterward.

"Here. Instead of wasting time fighting, the two of you can start from the top while I find the right pages in the atlas."

"With relish, Your Majesty," Jace says, making no move to take or even look at the list. Ever since he was young, Jace has been very particular about cleanliness, even when it comes to other people's things. Alec knows there's no way he'll be touching sheets of bare paper with dirty medical gloves.

They really do need to get started though, so Alec flips through the pages gingerly, trying his best to leave as few messy fingerprints as possible. "Okay, we might as well start with the inguinal canal, since we don't really need an atlas to find it."

"Easy enough," Jace agrees. He takes the medical probe from where they'd left it unceremoniously in the tank, and prods an open circle of tissue inside the abdominal wall. "This looks like it'd be the superficial inguinal ring to me. It's got the spermatic cord passing through it, and if you follow it through the inguinal canal," he sticks the probe inside, and Alec observes it emerging from a second, more internal hole, "you can find the deep inguinal ring. So that's four right off the bat."

"Don't other things pass through the inguinal canal?" Simon asks absently, still flipping through his atlas for the section on the pelvis and reproductive system. Alec catches a brief glimpse of an illustration of the vaginal canal extended around a baby's head and quickly looks away. Gross.

"Yeah, but Dr. Starkweather said we wouldn't be able to make them out in lab," Alec responds, still avoiding looking at the atlas for fear of whatever else he might see. "The only reason we can find the inguinal canal on the male cadaver is because of the spermatic cord."

"Thanks for the great segue into our next section, Alec." Jace takes the right spermatic cord in hand and follows it down to the cadaver's scrotum. The blackish, wrinkled skin, dissected, is already slightly open when Jace casually sticks his hand inside and pulls out the testis. A few years ago, Alec probably would have went into spasms of joy if he was told Jace would one day be cradling someone's testicle in his hand, but now he's only disconcerted. "What are the layers of the spermatic cord?"

"Uh...spermatic fascia?"

Jace snorts, and somehow the jerk manages to even sound good while doing it. "Care to elaborate on that?"

Biting his lip, Alec attempts to dredge up the information they'd covered two lectures ago. "External spermatic fascia, internal spermatic fascia, and...dartos muscle and fascia?"

"You had most of it right, but the middle layer's cremasteric muscle and fascia, not dartos," Simon corrects.

"Simon's right," Jace admits with all the enthusiasm as someone sawing off their own foot, "but I'll generously allow you bonus points for not looking in the book for the answers like _some_ atlas-wielding derelicts. I value integrity, and like to reward it whenever the opportunity presents itself."

"Gee, thanks." Trying his hardest to focus on the white cord of fascia, fibers and blood vessels in Jace's hand without his mind getting stuck on Jace cupping a testicle in his hand, Alec attempts to discern the individual layers, but comes up short. It looks like one solid mass of whitish-grey tissue to him." Can we actually tell the difference between all those? I can't really see one."

"Well, the outermost is going to be the external spermatic fascia-"

"I never would have guessed that the most external layer would actually be the layer with external in its name," Jace says, shaking his head sarcastically. "Thank you so much for clarifying that, Simon. It helps a lot."

"Stop being an ass and point out the other layers then," Simon responds, clearly beginning to grow irritated. To be honest, Alec can definitely see why. Jace has been riding Simon incessantly -and rather unfairly- ever since he started going out with Simon's best friend, Clary Fray. The two of them still hang out constantly, much to Jace's displeasure. Jealousy isn't exactly becoming on anyone, even the Jace Lightwood-Herondale's of the world.

"Gladly." Taking back the probe and leaning in so closely his hair nearly makes contact -seriously, he's inches away from a dead man's testicles, how the hell can he act so casually when Alec begins to have small mental breakdowns just looking too long? - he begins to sort through flaps of cut fascia and what might be muscle fibers, exposing a jumbled network of small tubes in a variety of mute colors. "This looks like it could be cremasteric muscle, I think? Which would make the layer underneath it internal spermatic by default."

"You think so?" Simon asks, joining Jace in examining the cord of flesh. "I'm not sure I see enough muscle fiber to really consider that a separate layer. Besides, by the time the practical rolls around it'll all be gone from everyone handling it, and even if it wasn't, how would they pin it?"

"I'm always sure, but if you really want to embarrass yourself, Ye of Little Faith, fine. Ask the LA."

At the mention of their lab assistant, Alec's heart gives a funny little stutter in his chest cavity. "You don't need to do that," Alec protests. Faintly, he registers that he's still holding the list of 'Terms to Know' in his hand, and that his grip has become more of a tight clutch. He feels like he's bracing himself, which is ridiculous. There's absolutely no reason to be nervous about the thought of interacting with their lab assistant. Even if he is extremely, unattainably, stupidly hot. "I'm sure Jace is right," he adds, hoping to appease to a stronger force.

"I'm not," Simon disagrees. Whatever sympathy Alec had been feeling for him a few minutes ago flees instantly, draining away like water in a sink. "Hold on, I see him now. Magnus!" His hand shoots up (completely unnecessarily, Alec thinks to himself unkindly; why raise your hand after you've already called him over?) and stays there no matter how much Alec wills it to go down.

A pair of light green eyes ringed with a layer of eyeliner turns their way. As he walks over to their tank, Alec feels like a bug pinned to corkboard, trapped behind glass and paralyzed before the man heading toward him. Being as tall and lithe as Magnus is, he shouldn't be able to pull the (electric blue) scrubs he's wearing off -few people can pull off scrubs, actually; it may as well be a cardinal rule of medical wear: Thou Shalt Not Exude Sex Appeal Whilst Dressed For Lab- but somehow he manages to defy all logic and look as sexy as he does when Alec catches sight of him outside of lab in impossibly tight pants and bright, well-fitted shirts.

Alec's the only one on his side of the tank, so it makes sense that Magnus would stand beside him instead of near Jace, where he'd have perfect access to the cadaver's feet and little else. The Human Gross Anatomy lab is kept at a perpetually chilly Just-This-Side-of-Frozen, making Alec even more hyperaware of the warm brush of Magnus's arm against his.

"You rang?" Alec's heard Magnus's voice plenty of times before, calling out answers to random students in their lab or having discussions with Dr. Starkweather, but the smooth, accented voice still sends a shiver skittering down his spine. According to his introduction on the first day of lab, he grew up in Indonesia before his family moved to the United States when he was ten. His heritage is clear in the almond-shape of his eyes and the even, caramel tone of his skin.

"We have a question about the layers of the spermatic cord," Simon says, gesturing to the cord in question. It's still in Jace's hand, spread open messily across his palm.

"You're in luck. Depending on the question, I may have an answer for you," Magnus responds, his full lips pulling into a smile that could raise armies in his name. Lord knows that Alec would be among the first to enlist. "Shoot."

"Is this cremasteric muscle, or just torn, discolored tissue?" Jace asks, pointing out the debated area with the end of the probe.

"Just let me put on some gloves and I'll see what I can tell you." Pulling a set on with a snap, Magnus leans over the cadaver to get a better look, bracing his elbows on the edge of the metal tank. He holds out his hand and wiggles his fingers, expectant. "Your probe, if you would be so kind."

Jace hands both the probe and the cadaver's exposed testicle to Magnus, who begins to sort through the tissue with casual ease, pushing and prodding things aside with surety.

"I'd agree that those are cremasteric muscle fibers," Magnus confirms after a few more seconds of observation.

Jace punches the air and delivers a swift 'told you so' to a scowling Simon.

Then, with a look that suggests he relishes shutting down people on the regular more than a good person should, Magnus adds, "Ultimately, it doesn't matter though. The layers of the spermatic cord are so thin and so likely to fuse together that it would be a nightmare to try pinning-it leaves way too much wriggle room for people to argue the question. Unless it was extremely obvious, like it is with the external spermatic fascia," he gestures to the smooth, white fascia clearly covering the entirety of the cord above the point of dissection, "no one would pin it during the practical on the bodies. Fascia layers are best seen in the Model Room, so I'd suggest checking them out there."

"Thanks." Simon's voice is decidedly smug when he says it, a satisfied smirk spread across his face. Beside him, Jace spears Simon with a lethal glare.

"Since I'm over here, how about I go over some of the structures for you? I couldn't help but notice you haven't gotten very far along, and you only have about," he consults a plastic My Little Pony wristwatch that Alec's almost positive were being given out with McDonald's Happy Meals a few months ago, "ten minutes until Dr. Starkweather comes over for another rousing round of pass the probe."

Ugh, pass the probe. A review-style "game" in which the lab group takes turns, as the name so aptly suggests, passing around the probe and attempting to identify an object while being scrutinized and corrected by their professor. It doesn't seem to matter how much Jace, Simon and he cover before it starts-Alec constantly fails to positively identify structures. To Alec, those five minutes feel like five hours, all of them spent in a place suspiciously similar to his idea of hell.

For some reason, being confronted by Dr. Starkweather wipes all of his knowledge clean, no matter how well he felt he knew it before being asked. While Magnus is clearly offering his help to the whole group, Alec can't help but hope that maybe Magnus noticed how anxious the game makes him, and was directing the question more toward him than the others.

"That sounds good to me," he says, still caught up in imaginary thoughts of existing in a world where Magnus secretly wants Alec just as much as Alec secretly wants him.

"Excellent," Magnus says. "Imparting my awesome depth of knowledge on wide-eyed students is what I'm paid for." Well, there went that brief fantasy. "Since we're already here, we can start with the testes."

Parting the folds of skin and tissue, Magnus begins to isolate and identify structures with a level of confidence Alec finds astounding. Most of the time in this class Alec feels like a fish out of water, flopping about pathetically, gasping for breath and desperately hoping he won't be crushed or killed while trying to survive and find his way. Even when it comes to parts of the body that he understands, Alec feels more like a kid playing doctor when reviewing them with a classmate than a pre-professional student who plans to base a career around the subject. The unflinching way Magnus handles the cadaver, like the possibility of irreparably damaging part of it has never even crossed his mind, is as envy inducing as it is desirable to Alec.

He wants to have that sort of confidence in himself, wants to figure out how to move himself that way. If he could, maybe he could do more than just admire the way Magnus's thin fingers move so surely. Maybe he could do more than imagine them moving the same way on him instead. Maybe then he could find it in himself to take that hand in his, look Magnus in the eye and say-

"Alec, are you going to feel it or what?"

"Huh?"

Shaking himself out of his inner thoughts, Alec realizes that Magnus has stopped lecturing them and is holding out the testis and cord, presumably for Alec to take. Magnus raises his eyebrows, expression expectant, and Alec feels himself flush.

"Uh, I missed that, sorry," he apologizes, ducking his head unconsciously. He peers out at Magnus behind a curtain of bangs. "What do you want me to, uh... touch?"

"It's no problem," Magnus says with a careless wave of is hand. Alec notes that his gloves are a bright, cheery purple. "I was just asking you to feel the ductus deferens. You can find it by following it up from the tail of the epididymis, but the best way to confirm it's the ductus deferens is to palpate it. It's extremely hard."

"Oh, um, sure." Even to his own ears, Alec sounds awkward and stilted. He takes the testicle from Magnus like he is passing him a cherry bomb instead of an organ, and has to fight off a fit of inappropriate laughter at the thought of exploding testes. Jesus, he needs to get a grip on himself. He feels like a like a middle schooler taking his first Sex Ed class instead of the college student he actually is. "This one here, right?"

"That's the one."

The ductus deferens is essentially a thin, flat, off-white cord surrounded by a tangled mass of dark veins, arteries, fascia and other tissue. It looks just as easily breakable to Alec as nerves of its size. He takes it between his thumb and forefinger and tentatively presses down, half expecting it to rip. Instead, it barely yields, almost shockingly sturdy in a lab where everything has to be handled with delicate care.

"Cool, huh?" Magnus asks with a grin, looking for all the world as though he'd just given Alec the key to eternal happiness instead of the preserved, dissected remains of a dead man's testicle. In the face of that sort of enthusiasm, Alec can't help but mirror it, warmth rising inside of him like champagne bubbles.

Alec bites the inside of his cheek to try to stave off any ill-timed blushing and breaks eye contact. "Yeah," he croaks out around his suddenly too-small esophagus, "awesome."

For the rest of Magnus's impromptu lecture, Alec focuses as intently as possible on his words instead of his voice, trying to compartmentalize the same way he does when he's dissecting, squaring away the information he's being given in the forefront of his mind and placing everything else into the back.

When Magnus begins to point things out -he's moved onto structures of the penis now, holding the halves apart nonchalantly and mentioning, with complete sincerity, how he can't wait to break out the saw and bisect the rest of the pelvis, even if he hates the smell- Alec watches the probe instead of his hands. He concentrates on the silver point tracing its way along the spongy components, breaking down what everything is, and then what is and isn't erectile tissue, all without missing a beat.

Before Alec knows it, Dr. Starkweather is calling for the rest of the class to beginning cleaning their equipment, and is walking over to their group. He's a middle-aged man with a slump to one shoulder that makes him seem forever off-balance.

"Are you all ready?" he asks. His voice is nothing short of polite, but Alec still feels his stomach begin to curdle with dread.

"Oh, sorry Hodge, I sort of commandeered their probe. Are any of you intrepid enough to take it from me willingly, or am I going to have to force it into someone's hands?" Magnus is, of course, referring to one of the few 'rules' of pass the probe: whoever is holding the probe when Dr. Starkweather calls for the review to begin must start things off. Since his first lab day, Alec has done his best to ensure the probe is nowhere near him when their professor calls time. "How about you, Alec? Wanna give it a go?"

Magnus wiggles the probe in front of his face. It catches the light like the weapon of a villain in a cartoon series, and Alec stares it down as though it is every bit as lethal. It's stupid and irrational, because he knows that even if he doesn't go first he's going to have to play, but he hates being the first to do anything. He always has, ever since he was young. His mouth is dry as he fights to move past his nerves and respond.

Thankfully, Jace comes to his rescue, plucking it deftly out of Magnus's hand. "Nah, Alec's hopeless when it comes to setting the bar. No need to worry, though-I've got this."

"Right," Magnus says bemusedly. "Well kiddies, I'd wish you luck, but you have an exclusive lesson with my knowledgeable self under your belts now, so I'm sure you're more than prepared." He punctuates his vote of confidence with a wink, and his eyelid is almost as bright a blue as his scrubs. "I'm going to head out for a few minutes, Hodge. When I get back I'll work on the prosected until dissection lab starts. Sound good?"

"That's fine, Magnus." Alec watches Magnus saunter away, eyes wandering to the sway of his hips. Even his ass manages to look fantastic in scrub pants, which makes no sense considering his height-his entire lower body should be swimming in fabric. It takes physical effort for Alec to pull his eyes away to the much-less pleasant sight of a too-pink cadaver, whose own glutes likely look like a pack of ground meat. "Return the body to its original state," meaning, close everything they'd opened up, "and begin."

ooo

When Alec makes his way out of the lab, closing the heavy door behind him carefully so that it doesn't slam (the hallways echo terribly, and classes are still going on), Magnus is waiting for him. He's sprawled himself across one of the large chairs placed throughout the hall, long legs thrown over one of the arms and his head tilted over the other. His scrubs have ridden up, exposing a small crescent of smooth, tan skin. Alec wants to lick it.

At the sound of the door snicking shut, Magnus sits up. "How'd you do?" Magnus asks without preamble, straightening his top with a quick flick of his hand. Alec feels a strange mixture of relief and disappointment at the gesture.

"I got a few right," he says with a shrug far more nonchalant than he feels. Getting three things right is better than his old record of 'zero', but that doesn't change the fact that he's absolutely pathetic when confronted with the challenge of actually proving what he knows. How can he be excited that he did better when 'better' is still terrible?

Magnus is watching him with sympathetic, knowing eyes, and honestly, that just makes him feel even worse. He doesn't want Magnus's sympathy. Alec just wants to be better, like Jace, who can go into lab without a copy of the list of terms, and come out of a round of pass the freaking probe with his ever answer right. He wants to stop feeling like he's stupid for getting turned around while navigating a confusing mass of skin and muscle and fat and blood vessels Alec wishes actually came in the different colors the way atlases depict them, instead of just a hundred shades of reddish brown you can barely tell apart. Alec wants Magnus to be able to look at him and see someone competent, instead of a man struggling to keep his head above the water.

"Would you be interested in tutoring?"

Somehow, that had been one of the last things Alec had expected Magnus to say (the very last being, "I've loved you since the moment I first saw you pick up a scalpel. Would you want to go out some time?"). If anything, he'd expected some sort of encouraging platitude, or maybe the same pieces of advice he's heard a million times from a million different sources. An actual offer of help had never crossed his mind.

Alec's stunned silence doesn't faze Magnus, who continues to talk without missing a beat. "No offense, but I can tell you've been struggling over the past few weeks -I'm very perceptive, you know- and figured I could extend a helping hand, see how you'd feel about it."

Tutoring is something Alec had actually considered before, but ultimately shot down. Maybe it was because smart, capable, flawless Jace had been the one to suggest it first. Maybe it was the way his father had been sitting in the room while they discussed his initial troubles, as reticent and cool as a statue. Maybe the reason was something else entirely, but no matter the case, Alec decided he wanted to get a handle on the lab by himself. It isn't like he doesn't know the material, after all. He's doing completely fine in lecture. Alec figured he just needed to invest more time in getting used to the cadaver, and attend more open labs. He wanted to be able to earn an A, and do it with he and his father both knowing he hadn't needed Jace there to hold his hand.

The thought of spending more time with Magnus is appealing, though. Very appealing. Maybe it could even lead to Alec feeling comfortable enough to gather the courage to ask him out.

If not, he'd at least get to watch Magnus in his element, reigning over the Anatomy Lab like a strange, shining anatomy god, forceps in one hand and scalpel in the other. Besides, it's clear that as much as he may want to pass this class on his own, it isn't working for him. It would be stupid of Alec to refuse the help of someone who not only knows what they're talking about, but who also helps in making up the tests. Magnus would be able to tell him things they definitely wouldn't pin, or areas that they tend to focus on.

"Are you sure?" Alec asks, hoping desperately that Magnus won't have a sudden change of heart, or remember that he has prior engagements. As a commuter, Alec doesn't spend much time around campus, but even he knows that Magnus is a very active member of Idris University's student body. "It won't be an issue for you, or take up too much of your time or anything?"

"I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't sure I could clear up the time to do it," Magnus assures. "If you're really concerned about it though, you can start by just coming to my dissection and open labs. For some reason, no one seems to think spending a few hours holed up with dead bodies is an ideal Friday, so they're always pretty empty. I'd actually appreciate the company."

Magnus would appreciate his company. His. Alec's company.

"Okay," he says, doing his best to keep the eagerness to a minimum. It would be just his luck, to scare Magnus off now by making himself out to be some pathetic, desperate creep with a crush. "I'd like that."

"Great." Magnus smiles again, and Alec thinks something vital inside of him may be melting. "I've got to get back to the lab now, so I'll see you tomorrow."

Alec doesn't really know if it'd be appropriate to joke around with someone he (technically) barely knows, so he rattles of a standard goodbye instead of wishing him the best with his bone saw. For the second time today, Alec watches him walk away, eyes fixed firmly on Magnus's retreating figure until it is cut off by the closing of the lab door.

It isn't until he's walking out the door of the health sciences building and into the freezing February air that Alec realizes the whole unable-to-keep-my-eyes-of-you thing he's afflicted with around Magnus could be a pretty big distraction. It's hard to memorize the location of different organs and vessels when you're spending all your time looking at someone else instead.

It's official. He's screwed.

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**A/N- Tell me what you think. I'm sort of self-conscious about this fic, since, while this is a very enjoyable subject for myself and I've tried to make it fun and enjoyable for others, I don't know if I actually accomplished that. Feedback would be very appreciated.**


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